According to this article we found, meetings are starting to happen and people are trying to move towards a common Application Installer. So their could be the end of the “My package manager is better than yours is” debates?  Well it’s a bit early to tell but it does sound like the big distros are talking about settling on a common package format.  If they do go forward with this we can only hope that it’s adoption moves faster than LSB(Linux Standards Base).  It would definitely go a long way to help adoption of Linux as a platform.  For instance, only seeing one line on download pages like Windows and Mac have would help newbies or people thinking about trying linux be less afraid.  When you can create app stores that only have to carry one type of package they become a lot easier to create.  We here at linuxinstall.net hope that every linux install will get easier over time.

What do you think?  What problems will one package format have?  What hidden benefits are there?  What hidden problems?